Arctech, the world’s leading tracking, racking, and BIPV solutions provider, initiated a webinar titling “The importance of Rigid Trackers in Increasing Energy Yield with large modules” with Solar Arabic on April 18th. This is the first webinar deciphering the relation between tracker rigidity and energy yield after the company released a white paper on this topic last month.
Pedro Magalhães, Director of Global Engineering and R&D at Arctech, and, Satish Pandey, Head of Analytics at Mahindra Teqo together explore the rigid trackers’ strategic importance via both technical and economical case studies.
Larger format, high-power modules are becoming the current trend in PV plants, as they lower the levelized cost of energy and balance of system costs. Nevertheless, larger modules increase the PV system area and also the loading and defection of the trackers’ structure.
Faced in the era of large modules, it is inevitable that the traditional solar tracker is compromising its efficiency and PV Energy Yield as large modules enlarge the WTT coefficients and lower the critical wind speed of the trackers.
Arctech has been the first supplier that upgraded both their 2P and 1P tracker lines to a truly rigid design through an innovative “multi-drive” mechanism. These stiff trackers can safely stow horizontally, which is vital to lower the wind pressure onto the new large-format modules and prevent cracking and delamination. Stiff trackers also enable increasing the wind stow speed threshold and thus extend the operational wind speed range. These optimized stow parameters can also help prevent energy losses and increase energy generation and revenue to a considerable extent.
Having declared a net-zero emissions target last October, the first among major petrostates, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is getting vocal about its ambition in developing decarbonization businesses at home and abroad.
During the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW), 15-19 January, officials from the UAE government and state-owned enterprises expressed their confidence that their country is well-positioned to harness the business opportunities from the energy transition to a low-carbon world.
According to the rosy picture they painted, the UAE wants renewables and nuclear facilities to make up for half of its installed power capacity by 2050, which will help decarbonize its grid and boost green hydrogen production. Simultaneously, the country will adopt carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology en-masse to mitigate emissions from continued fossil-fuel production and support blue hydrogen production.
Arctech has been entering and strengthening the Mena region since 2019 with a cumulated 1.5 GW shipment in the region. In 2020, the company supplied 575 MW of SkyLine solar trackers to the largest bifacial tracker solar park in Oman; last year, the company enhance its regional portfolio by signing a 2.1 GW trackers supply agreement with China Machinery Engineering Corporation for Al Dhafra PV2 PV power plant in Abu Dhabi, which once fully operational, the plant will reduce carbon emissions by more than 2.4 million tonnes a year. The reduction in emissions will be equivalent to taking approximately 470,000 cars off the road. The solar power project is in line with the UAE Energy Strategy 2050, which aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the total energy mix from 25% to 50% by 2050.